The Best Bath Towel

After roughly 135 hours researching hundreds of towels and drying off with dozens of them over the past four years, we think the Frontgate Resort Cotton Bath Towel is the best choice if you want to invest in soft, plush bath linens. It feels luxurious, comes in an array of sumptuous colors, and has proved itself durable.

Buying Options

The Frontgate Resort Cotton Bath Towel was the softest and most comfortable plush towel we tried. Thicker than our other picks, it feels luxe and substantial, like a high-quality hotel towel. With each wash it felt fuller and plusher, and after a year of use we’ve found that it held up better than any other towel we tested. It comes in a wide range of rich colors—more choices than any pick. It’s also available in a bath-sheet size, and it coordinates with a range of matching accessories, including bath mats and washcloths. If a plush, luxurious towel is what you want, this is a great one.

Buying Options

If you want to spend less for plush terry, the Target Fieldcrest Reserve Bath Towel is a good-quality towel at a bargain price. Although it isn’t as soft as the Frontgate, it is thinner and feels lighter to use, and it has a pleasant spring when you squish the terry between your fingers. It travels smoothly over wet skin, and is less clingy than many other terry towels we dried off with. It comes in fewer colors than most of our picks, but we like all five of the subtle neutrals available. It’s as generously sized as most terry towels we tried, and also comes in a bath sheet, hand towel, and washcloth.

Buying Options

If you prefer a thinner towel, we recommend the Bed Bath & Beyond Dri-Soft Plus Bath Towel. Some of our testers preferred this towel’s soft, ridged texture and smaller size (folded, it takes up less room than any other terry towel we tested). Although it’s advertised as a quick-dry towel, it didn’t dry faster than the other terry towels we tried. A set of four costs less than $30 at the time of this writing, depending on what color you buy (there are 12 to choose from). That makes it great for kids, college students, or anyone on a tight budget. But if you don’t like a very thin towel or if you prefer something with more coverage, this one probably isn’t for you.

Buying Options

For a more minimal, upscale look, or if you want a truly quick-drying towel, we recommend The Onsen Bath Towel. This towel is made with a lattice weave (sometimes called waffle or honeycomb), which feels more drapey and thinner than terry. Made of American-grown Supima cotton, The Onsen was the softest and smoothest lattice towel we used. It’s relatively expensive, but costs a fraction of the price of similar towels imported from Japan. Compared with the dozen or so hours it took our terry picks to dry, the Onsen was bone dry after about five hours. Keep in mind that if you prefer plush terry, you may not like the more textured feel of the Onsen.

Why you should trust us

I’m a bed and bath writer for Wirecutter, and I’ve written our guides to cotton sheets, flannel sheets, and duvet covers. To learn more about towels, I spoke with Rick Basinger, the director of manufacturing and innovation at 1888 Mills. I also interviewed Shane Monson, founder of Onsen, about lattice and waffle-weave towels. (Monson’s interview in no way informed our decision to recommend Onsen towels.)

This guide also builds on the work of Stephen Treffinger, who wrote the original version of this review. He spoke with Martin Bide, PhD, a professor in the Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design at the University of Rhode Island; Sean Cormier, assistant chair in the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Textile Development and Marketing department; and Angela Massengill, a fabric evaluation technologist at Cotton Incorporated. He also spoke with Ben Mead, a customer relations and technical specialist at Hohenstein Institute, the US testing lab for the Oeko-Tex standard, an environmental safety certification you’ll see on some towels.

Who should get this

Shane Monson, founder of Onsen told us: “The two basic jobs of a towel are to dry your body and dry itself.” A good towel should last five to 10 years—or longer, depending on how you wash and dry it. But even the best towels will eventually wear out after daily use: The seams can come undone, the base fabric can begin to shred, and the loops can degrade, resulting in a less fluffy feeling. Towels can also lose absorbency. If that’s the case with your bath towels, it’s time to invest in some new ones.

How we picked

After talking to our experts and conducting our research, we found that a great towel should have these criteria:

Absorbent: When you reach for a towel, it should first and foremost be effective at drying you off. It should wick water away from your body and into itself, not just push the water around.

Good texture: A towel should also feel comfortable against your skin, whatever that means to you. Some people like super plush, soft towels, while others prefer thinner, pleasantly scratchy ones. Determining the kind of texture you prefer is one of the easiest ways to find a towel you’ll love.

Feeling the darker version of the towel you’re considering should be more representative of its long-term softness. Deeply saturated colors use so much dye that they don’t absorb the softeners.

Quick to dry: A good towel should dry quickly so that it’s ready for your next shower and not prone to developing a mildewy smell.

Durable: Over the long term, it shouldn’t fall apart, shred, or unravel. Pilling, shrinkage, and fading—although normal with repeated use—should not occur to an annoying degree.

Ample coverage: A too-small or too-big towel is unpleasant, leaving you feeling cold and uncovered or drowning in weighty material. The amount of coverage will vary from person to person, but we asked staffers in a range of heights and sizes to wrap up in our picks and tell us what they thought.

Made of 100 percent cotton (preferably extra-long-staple): Although you’ll find some fans of alternative fibers like modal and bamboo rayon, the consensus from experts we’ve spoken to, for this guide and others, is that 100 percent cotton delivers the combination of absorbency, softness, and durability that most people want.

We looked for towels with simple edge finishes and bands, and we avoided designs with too much ornamentation or pattern. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

To find the towels we wanted to test, we sifted through hundreds of options online (the selection is dizzying and ever-changing) at Amazon, Macy’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Lands’ End, Target, Walmart, and The Company Store, plus smaller brands and startups like Brooklinen, Snowe, Parachute, and Onsen. We paid attention to owner ratings and comments, blogs, reader comments, and the opinions of Apartment Therapy, Good Housekeeping, and HGTV.

I also visited Kohl’s, Macy’s, JCPenney, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Target to look at the color and quality of many towels in person. Rick Basinger, director of manufacturing and innovation at 1888 Mills, suggested I use my nondominant hand to touch towels because it’s less rough and can pick up the softness and feel better. He warned that manufacturers often make new towels feel smoother by adding softeners, but those wash out after a few cycles (something we confirmed in our own tests). And he noted that dark and bold colors are more representative of a towel’s long-term softness because their dye prevents them from absorbing those softeners. Once the softener washes out, the towels feel the same, regardless of color.

In 2017 we looked at 116 terry towels and eventually narrowed that selection for testing to 15. After researching new offerings in 2018, we considered 21 new models and tested 10 against our existing picks.

How we tested

I began by measuring each towel and then asked testers to feel the new towels straight out of the packaging. I washed and dried everything once, measured for shrinkage, and looked for noticeable fraying, lint, color fading, or roughness. I washed all of our test towels five times, which Basinger told us is the industry average to test for longevity and color endurance. Then I checked each towel for fading, shedding, and other losses in quality. Five washes was also enough to make sure that all softeners were gone and the towel’s true feel was coming through.

Then I rated the towels for softness, springiness, and color, and noted any frayed hems or worn-thin sections and asked Wirecutter staffers to give their opinions on the feel and weight of the top contenders. I showered with each and noted their absorbency and feel, then timed how long they took to dry. After eliminating several towels at this stage, my family spent more than a week using the finalists. In total, for these tests we showered about 65 times in the last two years.

Buying Options

If you want a towel that’s thick and plush and feels sumptuous like a hotel towel, you’ll like the Frontgate Resort Cotton Bath Towel. It’s the densest and softest of our picks, it has a smoother feel but is just as absorbent as many other terry towels we tried, and it has one of the most extensive ranges of available colors we’ve ever seen. It’s my favorite of our picks for luxuriously wrapping around my body, and I spent far too much time just squishing it with my fingers.

The Frontgate feels plush and extravagant to use, and it’s made from long-staple Turkish cotton, so it’s smooth and durable. Only the Onsen is made with a higher-quality cotton (extra-long-staple Supima cotton), but it costs about 40 percent more. The Frontgate’s tight pile was the thickest of the towels we’ve tested, making it very fluffy. Walking around my bedroom wrapped in this towel, I felt like I was having a spa day. After our test washes, it looked almost new and actually felt better than it did out of the package.

The dense Frontgate has softer and thicker pile than any other towel we tested. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Frontgate was very absorbent in our shower tests, soaking up water instead of pushing it around. Though all of our picks absorbed well, this one didn’t feel as saturated and wet after drying off as most others. Terry towels often feel like they drag uncomfortably while you’re drying off, but the Frontgate’s pile feels smooth and easily moves over wet skin. It had less of that stick-to-the-body feeling than many others we tried, including those from Brooklinen and Snowe. It also draped better than many we tested. Unlike other thick terry towels that felt stiff, the Frontgate’s bulk had more movement and felt fluid to use. The Frontgate dried in the same amount of time as most other terry towels we tested—about 15 hours on a summer day in New Jersey—but it didn’t come close to the five-hour dry time of our also-great pick from Onsen, a lattice towel.

The Frontgate feels softer and springier than any other towel we used—like a luxurious hotel towel. Video: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Frontgate offers a whopping 28 rich, saturated colors to choose from, which should work with any bathroom’s decor. Only the Garnet Hill Signature Towel came close to this color selection, with 17 available colors. We didn’t notice any major color fade after testing. This towel has about 3,000 mostly positive owner reviews spanning many years, so it also has a good track record with purchasers. Frontgate also makes bath sheets and coordinating accessories, including hand towels, washcloths, and bath mats.

The Frontgate was the only towel we tried that got better with use. It comes at a cost, but we think it’s worth the investment if you want that luxury feel. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Long-term test notes

After a year of regular use, the color of my Frontgate towel still looks rich, with just a bit of fading, and it’s more vibrant than other towels I’ve been long-term testing. It’s still soft, plush, and absorbent. The terry is starting to fuzz at the top—little fibers are sticking up—but no more than other towels I’ve used for a year. It has no snags or pulls, and the hems are still intact. It’s still the softest, plushest towel in my linen closet, and my favorite towel overall.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The Frontgate is a thick, bulky towel, which some people don’t like. If you know you prefer thinner towels, it might feel overwhelming and cloying to use. It will also probably feel too soft for people who like towels that are pleasantly rough and invigorating. Its heft also means the Frontgate is bulkier to store and wash—you won’t be able to fit as many towels in a load of laundry as you would with our other picks (especially the much thinner Dri-Soft or Onsen towels). It’s one of the pricier terry towels we tested, so if you aren’t willing to invest in your bath towels right now, look to our other picks.

Buying Options

The Target Fieldcrest Reserve Bath Towel is a score for its price. It’s a good-quality towel that feels soft and plush but isn’t heavy; and it’s absorbent but doesn’t cling. It’s not as thick and decadent as the Frontgate Resort towel, our top pick, but it costs less than half the price. If the Frontgate is like a day at the spa, the Fieldcrest is like a relaxing face mask and pedicure at home—both are relaxing but one feels more indulgent, and costs more.

The pile of the Fieldcrest strikes a great balance—it’s soft but not heavy or overwhelming. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Fieldcrest is more substantial, and less drapey, than the Dri-Soft and Onsen towels we recommend, and also takes up more room when folded on a shelf or hung from a hook. The Fieldcrest didn’t shed or fuzz much during our wash test, but none of the towels we tested in 2018 did. It lost some softness in the wash, but after testing, it was still better than other terry towels from Target and more expensive startups like Parachute.

We found the Fieldcrest very pleasant to use after a shower—it absorbed well and moved smoothly over wet skin. Pricier terry towels we tested from Snowe and Brooklinen felt clingier and tended to stick. It also dried faster than many of the other plush towels we tested (by a couple of hours), but not as fast as the thin, textured Onsen lattice.

The Fieldcrest feels plush and soft, and it’s less dense and luxurious than the Frontgate. Video: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Fieldcrest isn’t quite as generous for wrapping as our main pick, the Frontgate—it’s about three inches shorter, but both bath towels were ample enough to make me feel covered. It’s also available in a bath sheet. According to Target’s site the Reserve is Oeko-Tex certified and it comes in five subdued colors—the fewest of our terry picks, but a couple more than the Onsen lattice. If having lots of colors to choose from is important to you, spring for the Frontgate. The Fieldcrest is a new release at Target so we don’t have many reviews to reference, but during testing we were impressed by how closely it compared to much more expensive towels. We’ll long-term test it to see how it wears, but so far we think it’s well worth the price.

Buying Options

If you like a very soft towel but prefer one that’s thinner and lighter, you might like Bed Bath & Beyond’s Dri-Soft Plus Bath Towel. It’s a nice-looking towel at a very budget-friendly price. We think it would be a great choice if you have young kids and want to buy a stack of towels for them without spending a lot of money. One of our editors has used these towels for years with no complaints about softness, wear, or clinginess.

This is the kind of towel that you’ll either love or hate. Although it wasn’t everyone’s favorite in our office, some of our staffers loved the texture, the lighter weight, the shorter length, and the thinner nap. Many of our testers found the buttery feel and ribbing so appealing that they reached out to feel and touch it repeatedly, and one of our staffers told us she preferred the efficiency and lightness of the Dri-Soft to larger, thicker terry cloth towels she’s tried. Another staffer also loved the thinness because, practically speaking, the towel was easier to manage and hang, but still plenty absorbent.

The smaller Dri-Soft (upper left) is one of the thinnest terry towels we recommend—when rolled it’s much smaller than other terry towels and nearly as compact as our lattice pick (upper right). Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

On the other hand, I found that the Dri-Soft clung to my body a little unpleasantly. Some of our testers (including me) felt it was too small to wrap up in comfortably. It’s the smallest towel we tested, at 30 by 54 inches (2 to 6 inches smaller than our other picks). We think the Dri-Soft is nicely sized for kids or if you have limited storage in a small bathroom (it rolls up compactly). The Dri-Soft is also available as a bath sheet measuring 64 by 34 inches. However, the bath sheet can cost more than twice the price of the smaller version.

The stripes of terry on the Dri-Soft towel are meant to help it dry more quickly, but we found that the difference was nominal. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Dri-Soft claims its towels dry ultrafast, but we didn’t find this to be true. In our tests, they dried a bit faster than most of our other terry towels, but that means 13 hours instead of 15, a nominal difference. They didn’t come close to the quick dry time of the Onsen lattice towel, which was completely dry in five hours.

Buying Options

If plush terry towels feel too heavy, or you want a towel that dries quickly, you may like the thinner texture of lattice. The Onsen Bath Towel is the best one we tried. This soft, spongy towel felt lighter and cooler to use than other lattice towels we tested, and it was the best at moving smoothly over wet skin without sticking. Woven lattice towels (also sometimes called waffle or honeycomb) easily absorb water but are lighter, and dry in a fraction of the time of terry’s looped pile. Less rigid, they have a luxurious loose drape that looks upscale but casual, and makes a stylish statement in the bathroom. In general, lattice towels can be pricey. The Onsen costs almost 50 percent more than the Frontgate, but significantly less than half the price of other lattice styles we tested.

One of the only downsides to the Onsen—and any waffle/honeycomb/lattice weave towel in general—is that the loose weave can be more prone to snagging. But we didn’t experience any snagging with our test towel. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The all-cotton Onsen is very light and soft, but slides smoothly over skin. It’s slightly heavier than the trendy and very expensive Kontex towel—a linen/cotton blend—but felt better when drying off. The Onsen is significantly lighter than our top pick, the Frontgate. Lattice competitors from Rejuvenation and Gilden Tree felt rougher and less comfortable to use—the latter was as scratchy as a kitchen towel.

The Onsen’s lattice weave feels more textured than any of our other picks, but it’s still very soft. Video: Kyle Fitzgerald

Most of the terry towels we’ve used take about 15 hours to dry, but after a morning shower, the lattice towels all felt bone dry by lunchtime, roughly five hours. The five lattice towels we tried tended to vary in size and depth of the weave, but this didn’t affect performance—they were all pretty absorbent. After a shower they felt wetter, but dried much faster, than any terry towel we tested. Like other airy waffle weaves found in home textiles, lattice towels will eventually snag—with such a loose weave it’s almost inevitable—so treat them gently. The Onsen may not last as long—or look as good for as long—as our sturdier terry picks. However, after five washes it still looked new.

You can roll the Onsen towel to less than half the size of the Frontgate (bottom left) or Fieldcrest (bottom right). Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Onsen Bath Towel is Oeko-Tex certified and made of 100 percent Supima cotton and comes in three neutral colors. Instead of chemical softening, Onsen told us that it garment washes its towels with specific temperatures and multiple cycles to achieve softness. If you like a larger towel, the Onsen is one of only two lattice towels we tried that’s available in a bath sheet, but we found the bath towel size to be plenty big. It was just as easy as the Frontgate and Fieldcrest (and better than the Dri-Soft) to comfortably wrap up.

Towel terminology

Towel labels and descriptions are often full of unfamiliar industry terms that will help you figure out how the towel was made and how it will feel to use. Each brand’s label may not include the same type of information, so comparison shopping can get tricky, but here are some terms you might see associated with towels.

Long-staple/extra-long-staple cotton: As with other home textiles, such as sheets, the best towels are made from long-staple or extra-long-staple (ELS) cotton, which produces smoother, stronger yarns. “The longer the staple length, the smoother the yarn is going to be,” Basinger told us. Generally, long-staple fibers range from 1⅛ to 1¼ inches, while ELS fibers are 1⅜ inches or longer. Basinger told us that long-staple cotton is also the most flexible, which increases longevity.

Turkish/Egyptian/Pima/Supima cotton: Labels that say Turkish, Egyptian, Pima, or Supima (the brand name for American Pima) usually indicate long-staple or ELS cotton. Be aware, though, that some manufacturers use terms like “Egyptian cotton” and “Turkish cotton” to sell inferior, shorter-staple cotton. You can read more about cotton quality in this blog post.

Combed and ring-spun cotton: High-quality towels are often made from cotton that has been combed to remove impurities and linty fibers, or ring spun, a specific spinning process requiring long-staple cotton that creates finer, smoother strands of yarn.

Some manufacturers use terms like “Egyptian cotton” and “Turkish cotton” to sell inferior, shorter-staple cotton.

Oeko-Tex:Oeko-Tex certification ensures that fabric is free from certain substances and processes that are potentially harmful to people and the environment. Read more about this certification and eco-friendly cotton in our cotton sheet guide.

Care and maintenace

Manufacturers typically treat towels with a variety of finishes, such as fabric softener, to make them feel fluffy and soft in the store. These coatings can leave a waxy buildup that make the towel less absorbent, so wash new towels before using. We found that all traces of these softeners usually wear off by the fifth wash. Using fabric softener at home every once in a while (if your towels feel scratchy) is fine, but try to avoid using softeners regularly. Similarly, using too much detergent can make your towels feel stiff and cause a buildup of residue. Hot water will prevent white towels from getting dingy, but will fade colors more quickly, so wash your bright towels in warm or cold.

The competition

Terry

Garnet Hill Signature Towel: This was a very good towel (we’ve tested it twice), and it comes in some great colors, but it wasn’t quite as absorbent or plush as our picks from Frontgate and Fieldcrest. If both of those are unavailable, or you just prefer Garnet Hill’s color selection, it’s a great choice.

Target’s Made by Design Bath Towel: In testing we liked this towel almost as much as the Bed Bath & Beyond Dri-Soft—it’s a bit softer and plusher—but it’s a cotton/polyester blend instead of 100 percent cotton, which we prefer. It comes in fewer colors than the Dri-Soft, and our testers liked the Dri-Soft’s small size and textured surface.

Brooklinen Super-Plush Bath Towel: Similar to the Snowe and Parachute towels, the Brooklinen towel was fine, but it’s clingier and less absorbent than our picks, and pricey for the quality. The Brooklinen also isn’t sold by the towel; you have to purchase pairs or towel sets.

Lands’ End Supima Bath Towel: Although this was a runner-up pick previously. In follow-up tests it didn’t absorb as well as other towels, and we thought it clung to the body too much out of the shower.

We’ve opted not to test terry towels from Crate and Barrel, Overstock.com, and Walmart because they were (respectively) pricey for the quality, sold only in sets, and had almost no information online about the cotton used.

Lattice

Parachute Waffle Towel: The Parachute towel is very soft, cheaper than the Onsen, and comes in a couple of extra colors, too. Our adult testers didn’t like the feel as much—it clung more to wet skin when drying off. It’s also much stretchier, and less dense (while the Onsen was opaque, this one let light through), so we’re not sure if it will be as durable over time. But our 6-year-old tester prefered this towel for its softness, the bigger size and light weight. So this could be a good pick for kids.

Rikumo Vintage Waffle Towel: This classic lattice towel has been produced in Imabari, Japan, since the 1930s. It’s imported to the United States through a company called Morihata, that sells it to several stores and also through its retail site Rikumo. If you see any of these names credited to an imported Japanese lattice towel—Kontex, Morihata, Rikumo—it’s all the same towel. It’s a linen/cotton blend, which made it feel scratchier on the skin than the Onsen. And it was more clingy while toweling off. We noticed that this towel is frequently out of stock, a common issue with imports. It costs four times as much as the Frontgate towel, and almost three times as much as the Onsen.

Rejuvenation Japanese Linen Waffle Towel: A cotton/linen blend, this towel is very similar to the Rikumo towel (and it costs about the same, too). The Rejuvenation is lovely, but thin. It didn’t have as much pocket depth as other towels we tested, but was still plenty absorbent. It was softer than the Rikumo, but not as soft as our pick, the Onsen.

Gilden Tree Waffle Weave Bath Towel: This towel is Oeko-Tex certified, and it was as absorbent as the other lattice towels we tested, but it was uncomfortable to use. It felt like drying off with a thick, rough kitchen dish towel rather than with a luxury bath towel (but it has a luxury price). The weave was also very flat and didn’t look like other waffle weaves we tested, so we’re not sure if it was made with a different process.